The Isaac Tucker House (1766)

The Isaac Tucker House is one of only a few to have survived the burning of Fairfield by British forces on July 7, 1779. The house was built in 1766, two years after Tucker married Mary Wakeman in 1764. Tradition holds that a servant, hiding upstairs, put out the flames and saved the house from destruction. There are still burn marks inside from the attempted torching. The house was later owned by Edmund Hobart, who served as postmaster in Fairfield in the mid-nineteenth century.

Hartford Seminary (1981)

The origins of the Hartford Seminary go back to the opening of the Theological Institute of Connecticut in 1834 in East Windsor Hill. Some houses in that neighborhood, where professors at the institute once lived, have survived, but the original seminary buildings have not. In 1865, the Institute moved to Hartford and in 1885 changed its name to the Hartford Theological Seminary. After occupying several old houses on Prospect Street, in the 1880s the Sminary moved to a campus on Broad Street, across from Hartford High School. In the 1920s, the Seminary moved to a new Gothic campus (now the UCONN Law School). In 1972, the Seminary changed from being a traditional residential divinity school and became an interdenominational theological center. It was decided to sell the old campus and construct a single building, designed by Richard Meier, a post-modern architect known for his use of the color white. The new structure was built between 1978 and 1981 and in the latter year the institution’s name was changed to Hartford Seminary. (more…)

Plymouth Building, Milford (1952)

During the Great Awakening in 1741, the membership of the First Congregational Church in Milford was split, with the more conservative members forming Second Church, under the leadership of Job Prudden, the great grandson of Peter Prudden, the first pastor of First Church. A new Greek Revival structure, called Plymouth Church, was constructed for the second congregation. The two Congregational churches then continued separately, but physically close to each other, for 185 years, until 1926, when they were reunited. The old Plymouth Church was then used as a playhouse until it was razed in 1951 and replaced the following year by the Plymouth Building, which houses a chapel and parish hall.

Ezra Bassett House (1800)

In 1799, Ezra Bassett, son of Capt. Hezekiah Bassett, purchased land in Hamden and within a few years had built a house along what is now Whitney Avenue. Probably a merchant, Ezra Bassett’s business suffered during the War of 1812, leading to the loss of the house in 1815. It was next owned by Jared Atwater and remained in his family for the rest of the nineteenth century. Although later significantly altered for commercial purposes with original decoration removed and display windows added, the house was more recently restored to its original appearance, with a Federal-style entry and tripartite window. The house now serves as a lawyer’s office.

Capt. David Judson House (1723)

Capt. David Judson built a Georgian-style house in Stratford around 1750 (or as early as 1723), on the foundation of his great-grandfather William‘s stone house of 1639. Nine generations of the family lived in the house until 1888, when the house was sold to John Wheeler. In 1891, it was sold to Celia and Cornelia Curtis, who willed it to the Stratford Historical Society in 1925. The Judson House, which is now a museum, is known for its particularly fine broken scroll pediment door surround.

Hermon Chapin House (1834)

On Main Street in New Hartford, across from Pine Meadow Green, is a Greek Revival home that once served as a parish house for St. John’s Episcopal Church. The earliest part of the house, in the rear, dates to 1784, but the front section was added in 1834, when Hermon Chapin, who established himself in Pine Meadow as a prominent tool manufacturer, moved in with his wife, Catharine Merrill. She later left the house to the Episcopal Church.